I’m starting a new chapter in What, Fresh Horror? this month, with the first instalment of a serialised story, The Devil’s Knave.
I usually release a completely new work every month, so why am I doing this? Well, writing is a time-consuming business and I want to focus on a new Nightmare Vacation novel over the summer.
Talking of summer, my next live event will be the ScribeFest book fair near Northampton, on June 28th. I’ll be taking part in a panel and it’s Midsummer, the first birthday of Blood Point, so I’m planning some special surprises. Book your tickets now – there will be cake!
I’ve also added a Christmas event, the Birmingham Christmas Book Bonanza on November 21st, and I’m hoping to add one or two more to complete the season.
The Devil’s Knave
A few months ago, I presented McKenzie’s Last Gamble, a rough cut of the first scene from a new short story. It’s grown and matured into The Devil’s Knave, the twisted tale of a wealthy gambler with very dark tastes who wagers the only thing he values, loses it with devastating consequences and determines to get it back by any means necessary.
The Devil’s Knave will become a free story for new subscribers in 2027 but I’m giving it to you first over the next six months. Each month, the first part will be in What, Fresh Horror? and the rest on a private web page where it will live until the story completes in November for Halloween.
And now, let me take you back to Liverpool in 1838, a hive of British industry and commerce which is making one William McKenzie very rich indeed.
Chapter 1. 1838: The Stranger
“Holy Mary, mother of God, what has he done to you, girl?” The door slammed before the patrons could hear the rest of Hettie’s outrage or the sobbing from within the room, but the horror in her voice did nothing to diminish the satisfaction on McKenzie’s face as he sat and uncorked the bottle that awaited him. The girl had learned a few things tonight. Painful lessons but the best always were.
“Another one ruined, Mac? Even Hettie has her limits.” The smile on his foreman’s face was for McKenzie’s benefit, the shake of his head for the rest of the table and any patrons who cared to take an interest.
It was all the judgement McKenzie expected to hear in this life or the next, and if he gave a damn, it didn’t show. He filled his glass and emptied it as fast, smacking his lips. “I pay enough to keep her in fresh girls and bedsheets. Plenty more where that one came from, in Liverpool and every shit hole from here to Barcelona.”
Avoiding eye contact, Tully picked up the cards and shuffled, a nervous habit that annoyed McKenzie. “Heard the young wan cursing you for your tastes. Bad luck on the Devil’s Night.”
“Keep your Halloween superstitions in the bogs and deal the cards, man, if you don’t want to be sent back.” McKenzie waved his glass at the empty brown bottles on the table. “Time for me to win back the pennies I’ve spent on your pleasures tonight.”
Tully muttered something about coming from Dublin, but he kept quiet.
“I’ll wager you’ve heard the same curses in every town, Mr McKenzie. And yet, good fortune seems to have followed you.” This accent was hard to place, but it was surely neither the Scouse or Irish that dominated Hettie’s bar. It was cultured, perhaps a wealthy American from the east coast.
McKenzie’s hand froze. The stranger lounged between the navvies at his table, as if he’d been there for the whole of the night. The man wore a waistcoat and pocket watch to rival McKenzie’s own, the two of them wealthy outliers amongst the dockside labourers who filled the room beneath a haze of cheap tobacco smoke.
“I could say the same of yourself,” said McKenzie. “And who might you be to question the diversions a man finds after his day’s work?”
Handsome and unscarred by manual labour, the stranger sipped the only other glass of wine on the table. “Naught but a man like yourself, in search of my own diverse pleasures and men with the strength for more than penny wagers.”
Tully’s anxious shuffling accelerated as he sensed his employer rise to the challenge. Both men knew that Hettie kept gin, whiskies, rum and beer, but neither had seen anyone else drink wine at her tables, save for McKenzie.
“Let’s see if you play as well as you talk. I’ll take your pennies first and we’ll see about shillings and pounds if you’ve the stomach for it.” McKenzie nodded to Tully, who dealt, starting as ever with his employer.
The pennies followed the luck of the cards and McKenzie’s talent for allowing his labourers enough to feel they’d leave the table without losing more than he’d spent on drink and Hettie’s cheaper doxies. He was used to controlling the table, his head clear after he’d satisfied himself, but the wealth flowed into two larger piles in front of McKenzie and the stranger, who began to toss shillings casually among the small change. One by one, the labourers made their excuses and eventually even Tully grunted and declared himself fit only to deal the cards.
McKenzie dismissed him. “Off you go, Mr Tully, I shall deal. Find that wife of yours and make her glad that you have Christian tastes, even if you are a Catholic.”
Tully nodded his thanks and rose to leave. “Thank you, Mac. Give my best to Mrs McKenzie.”
“Now there is a woman with Christian tastes, worse luck. Be off now, we’ve work to do on Monday.” The stranger watched the exchange intently.
McKenzie was far from happy that this man had seated himself with neither introduction nor permission, but he couldn’t deny that the arrival had enlivened the evening. For that alone, he could extend a welcome. “May I refill your glass? This is a fine wine from the terroir about Rouen, imported at great cost.”
“It certainly seems to be to your taste.” If anything, the stranger was amused that McKenzie’s offer had sent a ripple of surprise through their audience. He drained his glass, shook the dregs onto the sawdust at their feet and slid it across the table.
McKenzie filled it generously. “I’m not given to sharing this pleasure but I struggle to find someone who will play for stakes that hold significance. I’d wager that you are such a man.”
The stranger sipped and nodded his approval. “That is a wager that I will gladly allow you to win. What form of stakes would you have in mind?”
“Let us reconvene away from the cheap seats.” McKenzie waved his glass at the onlookers, who groaned their disappointment. “Hettie,” he called. “A private parlour, if you please.”
“It’ll cost you.” The scowling proprietor waved at one of her floor girls to show them through. She wouldn’t meet McKenzie’s eye and he knew too well why that was, but she gave a smiling glance to the stranger. Another girl, this one unbroken but wary, followed them with a new bottle from McKenzie’s personal cache.
He clipped and lit a cigar as the women set their table, offering one to the stranger. “I didn’t catch your name, sir, and we have been playing too long for you to have me at such a disadvantage.” As he leaned forwards, McKenzie caught a waft that was less perfumed than simply clean, yet with a bitter note. Hettie’s patrons smelled of hard work and hard living, though McKenzie preferred it cut with the tang of young fear.
The man accepted the smoke and sat down. “Shall we make that our first stakes? My name and a hundred Pounds?” He took the light McKenzie offered and savoured the first drag as the host dealt, rolling it around his mouth in a compliment to the quality of tobacco that must have been cheap and plentiful where he came from.
With McKenzie a hundred Pounds better off, the stranger delivered his answer: “Mr Madison.”
“Mr Madison of where?”
“Another answer to play for. Your deal, Mr McKenzie.”
***
You’ll find the next chapter at www.alexanderlane.co.uk/thedevilsknave. Use the password badbadbilly to enter.
Indie books for June 2026
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